AA Lost A Customer For Life (AA didn’t renew my CK)
 

I have spent the last 10 years as a Concierge Key flier with AA. I've enjoyed the perks but have also logged millions of miles and spent 100's of thousands of dollars with them. Last year I had back surgery and couldn't fly for quite some time and AA dropped me from CK in no-time flat. No warning. No letter. No chance to earn back the privileges, just bumped out! My actual flight miles earned me EXP status but I never even got a welcome packet or new card for that, in spite of asking several times. When I asked about special consideration because of my surgery, I was told that EXP is their highest level within AAdvantage and I would receive excellent service. As one who had been pampered with CK, I can tell you that EXP is not nearly the same. Couple that with the decline in service and I will happily move back to UA where I am 1K for life. Anyone else experiencing declines in service quality and care for customers at AA?

With a strong economy there are a lot of people attaining Concierge Key level status so the airline does not have much incentive to grant exceptions.

As I'm sure many will note below me. You enjoyed the status when you met the status... You had a year off, you don't currently meet their status. You rightfully should be dropped. Once you get it back you'll be pampered again! It's the name of the game.

• Anyone else experiencing declines in service quality and care for customers at AA?
• Anyone else experiencing declines in service quality and care for customers at UA?
• Anyone else experiencing declines in service quality and care for customers at DL?
• Anyone else experiencing declines in service quality and care for customers at XX? [XX = your airline of choice]

The grass in not always greener on the other side

Frequent flyer loyalty programs are about frequent flying. People have all sorts of reasons for not flying. The airlines ffp's have heard them all.

Hope you are fit & well now ^

It's not a status with published criteria and you surely knew that. You must have realized some time ago that there would be an issue. What measures did you take to let AA know before this became an issue?

Unlike the FFP with its established criteria, you would have received an individualized review.

As to jumping ship to UA, as you are more than likely aware, there are pluses and minuses to both MP and AA and one can argue about the value of 1K vs. EXP forever. But, somewhere there is some GS who has jumped ship to AA and he balances you out.

As a long term AA EXP (including 4 years of Chairman Preferred at US Airways pre-merger) it is difficult for me to have much sympathy.
I definitely do not meet the unpublished criteria for CK, and have never expected (or deserved) to be treated as such. However, if one year I did spend enough to make it, I would totally understand if it was taken away after a year of less spend.

Having said that, it does feel like the entire AA program is so over-saturated with EXPs that it is not as special as it was even 2 years ago, and definitely not as good as it was as Chairman with US AIrways.

Thanks for the shout-out.

Maybe they found out your FT username. :D

I am sure UA global services will welcome you!

I beg to differ - OP clearly flies and spends a lot with AA - enough to warrant 10 years of CK (I'm guessing his spend is around $500K-1M total.) Very surprised there's no "personal touch" especially for someone as valuable as OP.

There's some unnecessary shade being thrown at the OP here IMO. If you were CK for 10 years by spend I'd guess you probably fly lots of Intl-J/F so realistically being offered EXP isn't that bad as not like you're after upgrades and if you resume your spend you'd probably regain CX so never flying AA again seems a bit extreme given that CK needs to be earned each year. No clue if it would have mattered/helped but did you communicate to AA before now about the reasoning for the drop in flying/spend? Telling them to expect a drop and providing a good reason may have no impact given the opaqueness of the CK program but I could imagine in Dec/Jan they get a lot of exception requests where as if you set the expectation early with "and I will resume my typical flying patterns on xxxx" might have helped (or not, but it couldn't hurt).

That said if your 1K for life on UA you have 3M+ lifetime miles on UA and 4M gets GS for life (I think thats still the case?) so if you are close to that milestone or if its reachable in a reasonable period of time that might not be a bad move, if I was in the 3M+ range I'd certainty shoot for that over prequalifying for EXP/CK each year since when you stop flying for work you'd retain uber top tier forever.

I think a thing that doesn't happen enough in life and, almost universally doesn't happen online, is just acknowledging the feeling:

You are right to be mad and angry and disappointed. You've been in a relationship with AA for a long time and it sounds like you've contributed quite a lot to that relationship. It sounds like they aren't meeting you where you are. And that sucks. It probably feels like a massive middle finger and like your loyalty isn't even acknowledged, let alone reciprocated. You have every reason to be mad and disappointed and upset.

I don't know what AA should do, or what you should do. But I know that your feelings are yours and that makes them valid and, if you're anything like me, sometimes you just need to share them and be heard. Lord knows I've made my share of similar posts. And usually, in some small part, what I want is to be told I'm not insane (we'll leave my sanity to the adjudication of another thread). All I know is that if it were me, I'd be mad too. I'd feel disappointed that my loyalty didn't feel reciprocated. And those are valid feelings.

I hope AA fixes things for you, or that you find another port in the storm.